Home and business owners in Hearst will pay three per cent more in taxes this year.
Administrator Eric Picard says that means a $52 a year increase for homeowners and $96 for commercial and industrial…on properties assessed at $100,000.
He adds that budgets are getting more difficult to prepare because of big increases in day-to-day expenses that are hard to account for.
“Things like gas, gas has gone up quite a bit, food has gone up quite a bit, heating has gone up quite a bit,” he said. “The cost associated with DSAB, the Health Unit, the police, the OPP – all of these keep driving the operating budget higher and higher.”
The town of Hearst is also going ahead with several construction projects this year, and Picard says Mongeon Crescent and McManus Street are both getting major sewer lines.
“They basically have gutters in them right now, and they are going to be going up to local storm sewers, a proper large road and all of those things — that’s for Mongeon crescent and McManus Street,” he explained. “We are also going to be redoing the surface on most of our connecting link that’s the highway from 6th Street to 11th Street.”
